SISSY & THE BLISTERS at THE STRONGROOMS, SHOREDITCH

The last time I saw fewer punters at a gig I was stood on stage in an Archway boozer in 1997 rehashing the Stooges and the Electric Prunes to disastrous effect.  Sissy & The Blisters dispense similar garage nuggets to a similarly absent public, although more via a route of early Horrors and Shoreditch than The Lyrics and San Diego.  They're considerably more competent and, if their two and half singles and one EP over the previous 18 months is anything to go by, far more ambitious.  The Electric Fayre had the far superior and less embarrassing name.

Such sparse gigs are never an easy experience for either band or audience and a Blister apologises for them not being very good tonight but adds their last song will be.  Someone shouts “Make sure it is!”  One guitarist, the one not wearing gigantic Su Pollard glasses, promises it will and the lanky singer with hair like the ears of a mangy Afghan hound mutters “fucking wanker” to himself.  It is a pretty good one, as it goes, but no more so than what preceded it:  shouty, doom voiced, two minute blasts of goth-garage with splashes of Seeds organ.  Their music is black with orange flashes.       

Bass players are the socks to any outfit.  No one really cares about them, seemingly useless, and only noticed if they’re missing.  Sissy & The Blisters don’t have a bassist, which is a little gimmicky to me, so there’s little depth to their sound and the songs jab rather than land heavy punches.  The ones with the sharpest pop hooks – “You Girl” and “We Are The Others” - connect best and “Here Comes Your Man” by The Pixies comes from the blindside. 

A night feeling more like a rehearsal (and video shoot) than a real gig means, thankfully, I can’t summarise with a poor pun about them being sissies or being blistering.  The Electric Fayre quietly disbanded in 1998.